A candle is the smallest hosting decision and the most consequential. It does three things no lamp can do: it lowers the room by one notch, it gives the evening a body, and it ends when the evening ends. This is a short piece on where candles go and why.
Unscented. Always.
The food is the smell of the room. A scented candle competes with the food and usually wins, which is the wrong victory.
Save scented candles for the bathroom or the bedroom. Use unscented at the table, in the hall, and in the kitchen.
One on the table. Not three.
One pillar in the center of a small table, two tapers in low holders on a larger one. Three is overkill for eight people. Seven is overkill for any room.
The candle is a light source and a timer, not a chandelier.
One off the table.
The second candle, and this is the one that most people forget, goes somewhere other than the table. On a small sideboard. On a low shelf. On the kitchen counter where you are plating.
This one does the room work. It lowers the whole space, not just the dinner.
Lower than your eye.
A candle above eye level at a table is a glare. A candle at chin level is warm. Use shorter tapers. Use pillars. Use tea lights in small jars.
You should be able to see everyone across the table without looking through a flame.
Light them ten minutes before.
Not an hour before. Not when guests arrive. Ten minutes before, so they are already lit when the door opens, and so the candle has burned for a minute or two and looks lived-in, not just-started.
Let them burn down.
Do not blow them out halfway through dinner because the coffee is about to come. Let them burn. When the candle ends, the evening is moving toward ending too. This is a good and honest signal.
When one candle is very low, blow it out on purpose, make eye contact with whoever is across from you, and suggest tea.
A candle costs two dollars and does the work of a room-redesign. Light one on a Tuesday when no one is coming. You will eat better, talk slower, and close the kitchen earlier. It is the cheapest trick in hosting and the one most worth having.